David Lee was cutting the heel of a shoe in his workshop in Nottinghamshire when the machine tore off the thumb of his right hand. It was January 9, 2019, and Lee, a lifelong shoemaker, watched the finger fall to the floor, unable to do anything.
At Royal Derby Hospital, surgeon Jill Arrowsmith proposed something that sounded like science fiction: taking the big toe from his own foot and turning it into his new thumb. Ten hours of surgery later, under a microscope, they reconnected bones, tendons, nerves and tiny veins so that his hand could function again.
More than five years have passed. Lee returned to his trade, regained his grip and sensation in his hand, and today lives with the only side effect no one mentioned to him before surgery: it is his right foot that gets tired after a long workday.
